Ex-White Sox executive charged with taking kickbacks

November 10, 2010

A one-time high-ranking Chicago White Sox executive and two former team scouts preyed on the dreams of young, impoverished baseball prospects, skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars from their signing bonuses and contracts, federal authorities charged today.

The indictment in Chicago marks the first criminal charges in a national FBI investigation into scouting in Latin America by a number of Major League Baseball teams.

Among those charged was David Wilder, once considered a rising star in baseball's front-office circles and who had been a close friend and trusted adviser to Sox General Manager Ken Williams.

Wilder, who was fired in 2008 as the Sox's senior director of player personnel amid the federal probe, told the Tribune that the timing of the federal fraud charges caught him by surprise, but he declined to discuss them.

"I don't have a job. I don't have a life right now," he said in the brief telephone interview. "I'm a human being, and I have gone through a lot. I would appreciate it if you could give me some humanity. I have lost everything."

The indictment alleged that Wilder and two former Sox scouts, Jorge Oquendo Rivera and Victor Mateo, fraudulently inflated the signing bonuses of Latin American prospects and then had the players kick back the extra money to them over the more than three-year scheme. In all, they pocketed about $400,000 intended for 23 prospects, authorities said.

They "enriched themselves by taking advantage of vulnerable ballplayers, who were anxious to pursue their dreams of stardom in the major leagues," Robert Grant, head of the Chicago FBI office, said in a statement.

Federal authorities said the kickback scheme was hidden from the Sox and its "more senior officials."

A Sox official said Wednesday that several of the club's minor-league players had brought their concerns to staff during spring training 2008. Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf asked for MLB to conduct an independent investigation.

"That took about two months, and the results were turned over to the authorities as soon as the MLB guys had an accurate sense of what was going on," the Sox official said.

Baseball sources previously told the Tribune that the investigation intensified in 2008 after Wilder was stopped at an airport leaving the Dominican Republic with $30,000 to $40,000 in cash. Wilder told customs officials that the money was gambling winnings from local casinos, according to the sources.